There are all kinds of cholesterol lowering foods, and you will find that adding these foods to lower cholesterol to your diet is probably one of the most important things you can do if you want to keep your cholesterol levels under control.

While exercise, medication, and lifestyle changes are important, the thing that will have the greatest impact on your cholesterol levels is the food that you eat.

If you are serious about keeping your cholesterol in check, try adding the foods below to your diet and watch your cholesterol levels return to normal:

1) SOY Is Great – Isoflavones Will Combat Your Bad Cholesterol Levels

Soy is an amazing food that will do wonders to cut back on your cholesterol levels, and this kind of protein will do wonders for your body.

Soy protein contains lots of amino acids, but it contains none of the fat that you find in animal proteins.

There are isoflavones in the soy that will have an excellent effect on your bad cholesterol level – lowering it of course – so you would do well to add a bit of soy to your low cholesterol foods diet.

Oats also contain a good deal of protein, but they contain almost no fat as well. This means that you can make your exercise more effective, but you won’t increase your cholesterol levels.

The best thing about oats is that they are rich in fiber, and fiber is one of the most effective nutrients to help reduce your cholesterol levels.

Fiber actually bonds with the cholesterol particles in your intestines, which will help to prevent them from being absorbed by your body. The fiber ensures that cholesterol is sent out the waste disposal exit, and thus your body can naturally get rid of the cholesterol on its own thanks to all the fiber in the oats.

3) BEANS Are Effective Like Oats – The Fiber Also Bonds with the Cholesterol

Beans are another excellent source of protein, and are in fact considered the best of the low-fat protein foods.

Beans contain lots of the soluble fiber the bonds with the cholesterol particles and prevents them from being absorbed, so you can see why they are so effective.

The best thing about eating beans as a cholesterol lowering food: there are many different kinds of beans that you can enjoy in your cholesterol lowering foods diet – meaning you won’t ever get tired of eating them.

4) AVOCADO Is Very Healthy in Many Ways – Lots of Unsaturated Fat and Fiber That Raise Your Good HDL Cholesterol

Avocado is an interesting vegetable, as it contains a lot of fiber but also contains a good deal of fat as well.

However, rather than being the saturated fat that raises your cholesterol, it is the unsaturated fat that your body NEEDS in order to work well. So even though avocado is fat – it is very healthy fat.

You can actually raise your good HDL cholesterol by eating avocadoes, but you would do well to limit your consumption – as fat is fat no matter what form it’s in.

Salmon also contains a lot of fat, but again it is the good kind of fat that will boost your body’s production of the good cholesterol.

However, the salmon really packs a punch due to the high amounts of Omega 3 fatty acids it contains. These fatty acids will help your body to get rid of triglycerides – a form of cholesterol that is basically fat being stored by the body.

They can also help to reduce the risk of stroke and heart attack, giving you a chance to reduce your cholesterol before anything bad happens.

Garlic contains allicin, a special compound containing sulfur. This compound is a natural blood thinner, which means that your blood is much less likely to form clots as a result of the cholesterol.

However, it can also prevent the cholesterol floating around your body turning into hardened plaque, plaque that can crack and cause blood clots. It can also effectively stop the cholesterol particles from bonding to your arterial walls, acting like a protection against the harmful fatty particles.

7) TEA Boosts Good Cholesterol – An Antioxidant Treasure

Tea doesn’t seem like it would be an effective food to lower cholesterol, but the truth is that green and black tea both contain polyphenols – a powerful antioxidant.

These antioxidants help to prevent the cholesterol from hardening into plaque on the walls of your arteries, but they can also help to boost your body’s natural levels of good cholesterol.

Boosting your good cholesterol is key to lowering bad cholesterol levels, so drink a cup or two of tea a day to fight off your cholesterol.

Chocolate is another surprising addition to the list, as you would think that chocolate contains a lot of sugar and fat.

Well, the milk and white chocolate does, but natural, unsweetened, and bittersweet chocolate all contain very small amounts of sugar.

What the dark chocolate does contain is flavonoids, which are responsible for giving the chocolate its dark color. These flavonoids act as an antioxidant to prevent clogs in your arteries, so eat a bit of dark chocolate (no sugar if possible) in order to protect against high cholesterol.

Nuts are rich in fiber, which, as mentioned above, is one of the most important things to get a lot of if you are trying to fit off your cholesterol.

However, nuts also contain natural oils that your body puts to good use, using it to boost the production of good cholesterol in the body. Nuts contain all kinds of minerals and vitamins that will lower your bad cholesterol, meaning that your total cholesterol levels will go down as well.

Spinach is rich in lutein, which is a special coloring nutrient that gives the leafy green its dark green color.

Lutein is effective at preventing the cells in your body from breaking down, but it also helps to coat your arterial walls with a special layer that will basically “shrug off” the cholesterol particles that would stick to them. Spinach is also rich in fiber, and it really packs a punch against cholesterol.

Wow, all of these foods are great at lowering cholesterol, AND they taste great as well! Following a low cholesterol diet doesn’t mean a lot of anguish, suffering, and eating foods you really don’t like, but it does mean eating these delicious foods above that will help to keep your cholesterol under control.